


I Set Myself On Fire

by HiddenEye



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bearded Steve Rogers, Bottom Bucky Barnes, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Emotionally Repressed, Ghost Sam: boy you better pick up your ass or so help me, Hallucinations, M/M, Minor Carol Danvers/Maria Rambeau, Mutual Pining, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Racism, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson Friendship, Top Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:20:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27351856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiddenEye/pseuds/HiddenEye
Summary: “Got into any fights lately?”Steve pops his own candy into his mouth. “No,” he lies.“Mm-hm,” Natasha studies him, and being the stubborn bastard he is, Steve holds her gaze unrelentingly, his own cheek filled with the sweet caramel that’s threatening to burn his throat. “Sure.”
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 4
Kudos: 56





	I Set Myself On Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Fair warning, the first scene has some major racism going on with some nameless jackasses who talk shit about immigrants. I apologise if you're uncomfortable with it, but if it makes you feel better, Steve beats the shit outta them and tells them to lick the dirt from the bottom of his shoe. 
> 
> On another note, they gave us a dystopian world in Endgame, right? They could've at least given us Steve 'suck my dick' Rogers roughing it out in his Nomad phase instead of morphing himself into a republican Johnny Bravo (thank you tumblr post for this term) and fuck off back in time. No way in hell Steve would be puttering around in the '50s where everything is x10 more awful than the future, like _honestly_. And so, I've made him Angrier, as it should be.
> 
> This is supposed to be a character study kinda fic, and well, who’s Steve if Bucky isn’t already a part of him, amirite? 
> 
> Enjoy!

There’s no other way to do this.

Perhaps, that’s not true. Steve _knows_ that’s not true, because using his fists shouldn't be an option in taking down some assholes who think so highly of themselves that empathy is far from their mind. He probably should've told them to shut up and then slink back into the shadows himself. He probably should've just shut up himself, but who the fuck would he be then?

It isn't his fault that _they_ wanted to swing out the first hit. He only retaliated on instinct at that point, far too tired to deal with petty fights, but he’s not going to let some idiot land a finger on him if he can help it.

There are three of them, all stinkin’ middle-aged men who reek of beer and day-old sweat with dust on their pants. Steve’s not any better really, just as dusty himself from the time he’s been on the road. The sun’s been pretty intense that day, and he’s bound to start smelling like anyone would after riding their bikes for two hours or so.

These three men are the kind of people who clearly haven't been out of town all their lives, where they’ve been depending on what bullshit Fox News is spewing from how invested they seem when Steve first walks into that diner. He doesn't give them a second look when he settles on one of the stools, back turned to where they're occupying the booth a few ways away from him.

Steve orders two burgers and a plate of fries, topping it all off with a can of Coke. When he’s halfway in scarfing down his second burger, the newscaster very pointedly starts saying this could be the work of some terrorists at play. Only, it’s not Titans with a poor sense of economic reading who are the terrorists, but rather, “—these immigrants who are taking the chance to wring everyone dry by demanding rights that shouldn’t exist.”

Steve scoffs under his breath, when one of the men behind him scathingly announces, “Of course it’s the fucken’ immigrants. I bet they’re the ones making everyone dead and gone. Like what happened to my sister.”

“Won’t be the first time,” another grunts out, slamming his glass on the table after swallowing half his drink. “They probably planted some bombs around when we weren’t looking and then _poof._ Everyone just turns into fucking dust. My _dog_ turned into a pile of ashes by my feet.”

“How the fuck did they do that?”

“Passed some of ‘em on our way to the grocery store that day. I’m pretty sure they managed to do some hocus pocus on us before we went in even though I steered clear of them. Now, my dog’s gone.”

“They’re _immigrants._ Of course, they’re gonna fucking curse you and your dog.”

“We haven’t even done anything to them.” The audacity this man has to sound so petulant.

“They kill people for fun, it’s what they do. Look what’s happening to our soldiers. _They_ might as well be dead from how batshit nuts they’ve gotten after coming back here. Now, there’s a _portal.”_

“Jen said it was the aliens that opened it, though.”

“Will, your wife’s full of cock. No aliens are dropping from the sky and people are dead. It’s the immigrants. But, get this,” he lowers his voice, as if to share a secret. “ _We’re_ still here. Maybe, we can give ‘em a lil’ visit. Show ‘em how losing family will make ‘em feel, huh?”

“Hey,” Steve calls out. By then, the blood in his veins is bubbling hot and red. He almost crushes his cup the longer he’s forced to hear all these cruel remarks about people who’ve done nothing to make the snap happen. They’re innocent. _Thanos_ made the snap happen. _Thanos_ is the power-hungry bastard making excuses to kill people. 

Of course, _they_ don't know that. Or really, they _refuse_ to acknowledge it. Typical.

Steve looks over his shoulder, tucking his balled fist against his chest to hide it from them. “People didn't disappear because of your bullshit theory. Immigrants have nothing to do with this.”

“And how’d you know that, huh?” The first man demands, the one with an island on his head. “And what do you think that killed our family? They got turned to dirt by our feet, of course it’s those bastards.”

Steve is honestly too tired for this. “Didn’t you watch the news? Or anything that Fox hasn’t been feeding you? There was a portal that opened up on our planet and something went through. Clearly, it wasn’t from anyone here.”

“How’d we know it’s not some maniac with a lotta money opening a portal?” One of the men sneers. “Those people, who've been, oh I don’t know, been at war with us for _years_ , they’re _rich_. If anyone could get enough money to build something like that, it's gotta be them.”

“If you follow that logic, then we’re rich too. You can’t be blaming other people when it’s clear _you_ don’t know anything.” Steve doesn’t know why he bothers; they’re not listening, it’s going to be a never-ending ride on the carousel of denial if they keep this up. He should stop indulging them. He should turn around and finish his burger.

“Oh, so _you’re_ an expert on these things, huh pal?” Island Head is standing up now, attracting other people’s attention from how loud he’s gotten. “You’re, what, _defending_ those immigrants? They don’t deserve a place here, and it’s all good that they’re dead too.”

“They deserve a place as much as everyone else does. If their home is here, then it’s _here_. The fact you’re thinking of killing them?” Steve cocks up an eyebrow. “Maybe I should report you for attempted murder.”

There’s a gasp from the nearest booth near them, where a father is collecting his son and stalking out of the diner. Other customers are already shifting in their seats with caution. Island Head is red in the face from rage when he snarls at Steve. “I ain’t sayin’ _nothing_ like that.”

“You wanna lie to me?” Steve challenges, using his side to lean against the counter, elbow perched on the surface. “After everything you said?”

“Fuck you, man!” Island Head’s friend shouts. “He didn’t say anything. You’re the one who’s lying.”

“I heard what you said just now just fine,” Steve says with pressed patience, and it makes Island Head even redder than before. “Didn’t your dog turn to dust?”

“Fellas,” the owner behind the counter starts, slapping a rag onto his shoulder as he clutches his hips, eyeing Steve and the group of men warily. “You’re scaring my customers. It’s best if you take this outside.”

“Only if this fucker ain’t too much of a pussy,” Island Head growls at Steve. “With his _high_ praises of these immigrants, he might as well live up in their asses from how he’s kissin’ ‘em so much."

Steve thins his mouth. “They’re _people_.”

“They’re _immigrants_.” The man spits back out, as if the word is so filthy.

Steve’s trying not to burst out and land a hit on the guy, really, and it’s taking immense effort on his part. He shakes his head, turning back to his meal even if the appetite is gone. 

“Oh, no, no, you got my attention now. Ain’t that what you want, buddy?” Island Head mocks him, stepping out of his booth. “You wanna tell me how this wasn’t even some commie work? Or how they plan to kill us all because they think we’re helpless lil’ sheep who can’t do anything? Well, they’re _wrong._ We got our guns out for a reason, and we’re gonna use ‘em all we want to stop whatever’s happening now.”

The man is now hounding Steve, standing right beside him to appear big and intimidating in hopes to plant some sort of fear in him. It doesn’t. Steve’s more annoyed now. The man’s stank is stronger when there’s hardly any distance between them. More importantly, the man is saying whatever’s in mind to make him look smart when he doesn’t — it makes him look stupid, because he’s rambling about an ideology that’s going to get people hurt.

Steve slowly takes in a breath, and squints at him like he’s a piece of specimen scraped from the asshole of a pig. “You’re crazy.”

“Welcome to America,” the man says with glee, as if that makes any fucking sense.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Steve asks stoically.

“It means we’re in America now, buddy, and we don’t need any slackers here livin’ on _our_ land, staying in _our_ houses, and using _our_ stuff.”

“Jesus,” Steve mutters, already standing up. He’s had enough. Any more and he’s going to put a hole in someone’s teeth. He slaps some bills on the counter to pay for his food and slides away from Island Head’s body odor to leave the place, his leather jacket in hand.

“Hey! I’m not done talking to you!”

“I am,” Steve says without looking back, already pushing the door open.

He walks towards where his bike is parked at the end of the lot, already taking out his keys when he hears the scuffle of feet behind him. Steve sighs, not bothering to increase his pace as they catch up with him.

“I _said_ I’m not done with you.”

It takes seconds.

Steve drops his jacket on the seat of his bike and whirls around in time to catch the fist swinging close to his nose. He sees how Island Head’s eyes are almost bulging out of their sockets from the sudden catch, and Steve tightens his hold around his hand until the man starts to wince uncomfortably. 

“You’re making a big mistake if you start this,” Steve warns them.

“You’re the goody two shoes with a stick up his ass.” The man retaliates foully, and Steve manages to duck away from one of his cronies’ hits when it goes down on him like a missle.

It’s the familiarity of a street fight that comes flaring up at the back of his mind, and Steve’s having far too much fun than he should be when he watches them eating asphalt every time they fall down. Steve isn’t even doing much of the hitting when he’s been directing their punches onto each other or pushing their weight around until they lose their step; they’re very easy to manoeuvre around with, and Sam would’ve clicked his tongue at Steve for playing with his prey.

Something heavy and painful hits him in the chest at that thought — Sam would’ve looked at him with something bland if he sees Steve like this. Sam would’ve said, with the total ridicule of a friend to his friend, “So, this is what you're gonna do? You’re gonna make ‘em chase their own tail?”

Steve would shoot back, “What about it?” 

That would make Sam say, “Nothing, nothing. Just that it could be a lot easier if we just punch ‘em now.” 

Steve would chortle and say, “Where’s the joy in _that?_ ”

But, Sam isn’t here. Sam isn’t here, and he’s not joining Steve on his ridiculous conquest to run from the government anymore when Sam chooses to be a fugitive for him. Sam drops everything just to be with Steve and Natasha when they go running around the world and that’s supposed to be wrong, Steve says so himself to Sam’s face. He’s supposed to go back to his family, assure them he’s fine. He’s not supposed to be running for his life because of Steve.

And yet, he did.

He’s gone now, though. Sam’s _gone_ now, and he isn’t there to give Steve shit for being _a_ shit to these people. Steve would argue that they deserve it, and Sam would agree with him anyway.

It spreads wide across his sternum, this grief; Steve looks at the three men and how they’re panting and sweating and getting tired but they refuse to back down. They’re looking at him as if he’s the evilest thing they’ve come across and they’re going to end him there and then.

Steve gives one of them a swing of his fist against the jaw, quick and clean, and the man topples like a stack of bricks and doesn’t get back up. Island Head and his other friend gape at him, at their fallen friend, and come charging at Steve like bulls. Without another moment wasted, Steve doesn’t think twice in taking them both down. It’s over in a matter of seconds.

“Some fight,” Steve can hear Sam comment as they both look down at these men. Steve licks his dry lips; once he starts, he can’t seem to stop, apparently. Sam rubs his chin with his thumb. “D’you think you’re gonna keep this up?”

It doesn’t get an answer out of him, not when Steve’s busy looking at nothing while the three men are still knocked out by his feet. Sam doesn’t need one, not when he lets out a knowing hum at the silence. “That had to feel good. Can’t say the same for them, though. Looks like they’re gonna suffer those bruises for the next couple of weeks.”

Steve doesn’t say anything. He walks around the people he has just hit and hefts himself onto his bike. He slips onto his helmet before starting the engine that roars in the parking lot. When he lifts his head, the people who are in the diner are staring at him, something like fear and satisfaction marring across those faces.

He’s afraid that once he acknowledges Sam then, once he says a word back to him, Steve thinks he’s admitting to himself that he’s going out of his mind.

And so, he clamps his mouth shut. Sam seems to understand.

He almost feels the way another body hops in behind him. Sam pats his side. “C’mon, it’s time to go back.”

When Steve leaves the place, he’s pressing gas as if his life depends on it.

* * *

“Thanos doesn’t have a successor, does he?” Natasha asks, holding onto her mug of coffee. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news to the world that another one of him decided to avenge his death or something.”

“Not that we know of,” Nebula replies. She’s sitting at the far corner so that she can get an eye on every one of them. “I may be his daughter, but I wasn’t near in being anything that needed taking over. Ronan? Unlikely. His lieutenants were pushing it. Gamora,” she pauses, jaw tightening. “She hated him too much. She’d rather kill him herself.”

“Now we know no one’s going to kill us for killing him,” Rhodey says, leaning against the edge of the table with his arms crossed. “It’s time we find something on these stones. There has to be some archive that keeps information about them.”

“And then, what?” Rocket asks, hands fiddling with something spherical. Steve hopes it’s not something that blows up. “We get everyone back? Just like that?”

“That’s the idea,” Rhodey answers wryly.

“The purple abomination destroyed the stones. All of them.” Rocket looks up, his beady eyes on him. “Crushed them all before we could reach them and went on a tropical holiday with his weird lookin’ pineapples. What’s there _to_ save when the stones are _gone?_ ”

“There has to be something that can bring everyone back. Whoever made those stones probably have some sort of manual that can tell us if there are other ways, or other stones.”

“You do realise this is not something we can switch on and off—“

“I’m not saying there is—“

Eight months. That’s how long it’s been since they ambushed the Titan in his house; since Thor used Stormbreaker to slice through Thanos and chop off his head. 

Said god hasn't been with them since the day he decapitated Thanos, and the rest of them haven’t exactly been trying to contact him again. Thor gets out the moment the ship lands on Earth again, shooting through the air like a bullet and away from the Compound that leaves Steve staring at him with something akin to pity in his chest — Thor just lost his home and his people to Thanos, Steve figures he needs the space to cool off.

He wishes he can do that — just _leave_. Borrow Rocket’s ship and leave Earth to explore whatever’s out there. He’s already seen the possibilities in the planet Thanos hidden; there are so many things Steve doesn’t know that exist, some that don't occur to him until that day. _I know they’re out there_ , he thinks that day with the Titan dead, hours after they landed back on their home planet. _There’s more to it. To this._

It’s that second when wonder glows a bright light inside him, the curiosity a burning thing to tamper down. For that one moment, the burden of what happened is lifted off his chest.

He’s just afraid that the moment Earth needed his help, needed his hands to stop anything that would pose a threat to the people, he wouldn’t be there to do what he’s been made to do.

Steve watches Rhodey and Rocket argue for the next few seconds, before directing his attention to the pager on the table, now inactive for eight months.

“—she’s going to come back?”

“Danvers? She’s in Louisiana, and she’ll drop by in a few more days.”

“Think she’ll have something by then? Because between all of us?” Rocket gives the room a pointed sweep of his eyes, causing Nebula to roll hers and Natasha meeting his gaze with unrelenting sharpness. “We know nothin’.”

“Hopefully.” Rhodey sighs, wiping a hand over the side of his face as he makes his way towards the coffee machine. “You sure there’s nothing about a place that can tell us about the stones? Because you’re the best chance we have with Thanos.”

At this, he’s addressing Nebula. She only narrows her eyes at him. “I told you,” she begins, just a tad abrasive. “He was a psychopath who used others to get what he wanted. He only knew the purpose of those stones and what they could do. He couldn’t give a damn in the _after_ of what those stones did other than give him what he wanted.”

Rocket waves a hand at her way. “That settles it.”

“Carol could know something,” Steve says for the first time in a while. “Before she left that day, she said something about asking the Skrulls for something they might know. Hopefully, once she gets here, we'll be able to utilise that information into,” he pauses, trying not to frown from how many times he’s said this word. “Something.”

“The stones are one of a kind,” Nebula tells them. “There aren’t any more like them. If they’re destroyed, then that’s it.”

“Yeah, we know that,” Rhodey replies, taking a sip of his coffee. “But, powerful rocks like that, you’d think they have some sort of backup if everything goes upside down.”

“The people who made those kinds of power wouldn’t care if there were consequences. The stones were made for their sole purpose of existing as what they are, and if they’re suddenly incompetent to do what they were created to do?” Nebula shrugs. “If they’re gone, they’re gone.”

“Horrible planning,” Natasha mutters against her mug.

“They’re as useless as wet towels,” Rocket grumbles, nails clicking onto the orb he’s still holding on. He holds it above his face to look at it properly, and Steve notices the small blinking blue light right in the middle of the surface. “So, we wait for the powerful lady to stop by and we’ll see if we have more options.”

“Yeah,” Rhodey puts down his mug on the table. “We do that.”

Slowly, everyone gets out of the meeting room, and Steve finds himself following Natasha down the hallways. They don’t say anything yet, the afternoon sun filtering through the glass walls that Steve takes a glance at the outside; the small garden tucked inside of the Compound is a salvation among the greys stacked around him, the tree perched in the middle of the clearing just enough to provide some shade if anyone wanted to sit outside. There’s a bench there, one that he knows where Natasha would sit on with a book to read if she wants some time alone.

They turn around a corner and the view vanishes. Steve finds himself in another room, eyes pulled to the holograms of the disappeared people. He’s read them all more than he can count to know what information they hold. The pictures attached to them are professional, but under the blue glow of the hologram, they could be considered as somber.

Steve makes his way towards them when Natasha drops herself onto one of the chairs, spinning around to face him. “How’s the drive back?”

“Could’ve been more interesting,” he replies, stopping in front of Lang’s face. Steve swipes it to the side and the picture of Peter Parker stares back at him. 

Natasha gives out a hum, and the scrutinisation of her gaze prickles on his nape that he ignores it in favour of rereading the kid’s personal intel.

Sixteen years old. Already eager to join the Avengers and save the world. Jesus.

When Steve is still sixteen with knobbly knees, he’s been more worried about the duration of his survival and how long he can last through sheer will alone. Whatever medicine he’s been high on at that time can’t even do that. 

But, _well_ , Bucky would’ve argued and said Steve’s just as reckless at his age. He would’ve said, _Rogers, I’ve seen you fight people who looked at someone else funny, and I’ve seen you when people talk shit about other people. You were just as bad as he is when it comes to fighting for the greater good._

Steve licks his chapped lips.

And now, this kid, this _hero_ , wants to take on something completely foreign and out of touch with their reality that it makes his gut clench. And Spiderman does exactly that; he jumps into a rocket and tries to fight Thanos with Iron Man and a bunch of others.

And then? He’s gone. Just like the rest of them.

Steve wonders how Tony’s been doing. He’s not going to call the man, that’s for sure. But, the flitting thoughts come and go right then, and Steve can’t bring himself to retain them.

“You could’ve stuck with the truck like I told you to,” Natasha reminds him.

Steve swipes away Peter’s profile and Wanda takes his place. She’s just as young as he is. Why are they recruiting children? “I like my bike better,” The way _Pietro Maximoff, Twin Brother (Deceased)_ glares back at him under the family category shouldn’t burn his skin. “You can’t avoid traffic with a truck.”

“What traffic?” Natasha asks grimly, and she seems to retract herself when she leans back in the chair. “A truck could’ve saved your back. Slouching over the handles for more than a couple of hours can’t honestly be good for you.”

Steve grunts in agreement. “I like my bike better, though.”

“I know,” she says, swinging the chair to face the files on the desk. “By the way, I found some very funny business in Boston the other day.”

“Why were you in Boston?” Steve swipes all the intel back into its file and begins going through the report Nebula and Rocket compiled when they’ve been up in space. “And how funny?”

“Some reconciliation,” she answers the first question with a wry smile, before continuing, “And funny enough for me to look into it a bit, anyway. I was on my way back here when I caught some people wearing these robes, as if it’s already Halloween and not in the middle of May.” She opens up one file. “I followed them, saw them go into an abandoned factory, and then it’s your typical cult making on the way.”

Steve swivels around to meet her awaiting gaze. “A cult?”

“There were around thirty-two of them,” Natasha informs him. “I stayed on and listened to them have a speech or two, and what I’m hearing is not that harmless,” she pauses. “Yet.”

“What did you hear?” The thrill of a new mission hums dully underneath his skin but it catches his attention nonetheless. Steve knows he’s itching for some trouble, and that should be a bad hobby. 

However, he finds himself settling on the chair opposite her. 

“They’re using the snap as an excuse to grovel by Thanos’ feet, even if he’s as dead as any chopped chicken,” One side of Natasha’s mouth pinches down. “They’re saying God sent him to cleanse this world of the sinners and they’re the pure ones left. They’re planning to regroup all of the others who are willing to join ‘in this ecstasy of being alive.’ And that usually entails knocking on people’s doors and asking them to pray to their God for having a chance in this kind of humanity. Or, if you wanna go modern, the internet’s a perfect trap to catch some people who don’t know what they’re getting into.”

“Jesus,” Steve mutters. “They haven’t done anything in that factor, right?”

“Not yet. I just stumbled on them planning to spread their ways, and others have been agreeing with the one giving out the ideas. I’m guessing he’s the leader.” Natasha shrugs one shoulder. “I’d say we ignore this and opt it as one of those crazy groups people like to be in, but if they start harassing the neighbourhood…”

She trails out, leaving the implication the way it is, and Steve understands it all the same. “We’ll just have to keep an eye on them, find out if there are more of them out there.”

“I thought so too,” Natasha agrees. 

“And we’ll jump in if they’re getting out of hand.” Steve rakes back his hair with his fingers, disbelief apparent on his face. “I mean, Jesus Christ, a cult of all things? _Now?_ ”

“They’re not doing the same type of work we’re doing,” she points out, waving a hand towards the hologram. “They have a little more time on their hands than we do. That’s when all the creativity comes up.”

“They could’ve done something that’s not all of _that_ ,” he grumbles. “They got a name for themselves?”

“The Light,” Natasha says, causing Steve to snort out in indignation. She smiles sharply back. “I know.”

“The Light, huh?” Steve sighs, shoulders heavy with exhaustion. “I gotta say, that sounds very original.”

“I’ll tell you anything if I find more of them,” Natasha pulls onto the drawer from her side and takes out some caramel cubes. “Send me a text when you see any of them during your road trips.”

Steve takes one caramel cube and starts unwrapping it. “Yeah. Sure thing.”

“Which reminds me,” Natasha has one cheek jutted out from the candy. “Got into any fights lately?”

Steve pops his own candy into his mouth. “No,” he lies.

“Mm-hm,” Natasha studies him, and being the stubborn bastard he is, Steve holds her gaze unrelentingly, his own cheek filled with the sweet caramel that’s threatening to burn his throat. “Sure.”

He crosses his arms at this; bad move, because her eyes narrow at him. “If anything, they’re a bunch of idiots.”

She nods. “We have a lot of that right now.”

“And,” he adds, because he thinks this doesn’t get to be said as much as it does nowadays when some people whine over the idea of ‘justified violence’. “They fuckin’ deserve it.”

She just looks amused now. “Of course.”

“Nat.” He’s admonishing her, but a smile twitches under the false disgruntlement he acts on. 

“Steve.” She shoots back, her own smile making an appearance. “Did it feel good?”

Sam’s words echo back at him at the question, bouncing off the walls of his ears drums that Steve has to force himself to not shift under the sudden intrusion. He looks to the side, and suddenly Sam is sitting on the armrest of Natasha’s chair, his hand resting on her shoulder, eyebrows arched high in inquiry as both of them wait for his answer.

“You didn’t answer my question that time,” the ghost of Sam Wilson says. He looks down at Natasha, fondness bright in his smile. “Nat always managed to dig something outta you a whole better than I can, though. Maybe, you can answer her.”

Sam looks at him again. “So, Rogers? You wanna tell her?”

Steve stares at him. “It felt good when it needed to be,” he addresses them both, and similar looks of understanding dawn on them that Steve has to look down at the wrapper he’s been fidgeting between his fingers.

“Alright,” Natasha says, Sam nodding beside her. She regards Steve for a moment. “You know you can talk about these things.”

“I have you.” Steve jokes, but it falls flat instead, where it comes out more of a statement. He tries not to wince.

“I don’t know that much,” she tells him softly. “But, others can help. They’d listen.”

Steve considers her back from his chair. “You want me to get a therapist.”

“If that’s going to get you to talk about what’s been bothering you,” she says, and he’s already shaking his head, but she ignores that and continues. “It’ll take the load off your chest.”

“Considering what we’ve gone through are the same things, then you should come with me.” He tells her mildly.

She smirks, but there’s a warning in it. “I’m handling myself just fine.”

“Well then, that goes the same with me,” Steve answers, and he’s trying very hard to ignore the way Sam is watching their interaction, expression carefully blank. 

“Really.” She monotones. “Then, why did you hit those men?”

Steve sucks in a breath through his teeth. Sam shakes his head, muttering something about spies being prey onto the lesser humans by using invisibility. “You’ve been following me?”

“I know from experience that those types are attracted to you most. Men with peas for brains. Steve,” When she says his name, it’s gentle. “People can help.”

“I don’t have time to talk to people, Nat,” Steve relents tiredly, positioning the transparent piece of plastic right between them. “I need to find everyone who disappeared. I need to find Bucky and Sam. Wanda and T’Challa. Shuri. How am I gonna do that if I went to strangers just to talk about how everything went tits up?” He thins his mouth. “Strangers wouldn’t understand, anyway, if I talk.”

“They’ll understand loss, like you’re currently experiencing.” She stops, eyes dropping to the wrapper, before saying, “I’m not asking you to stop this search. Just, to talk to them. They’ll listen to what you need to say, even if it’s going to take you a while to open up to them. But, they’ll be patient about it, and they don’t mind.”

Sam tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, even if it doesn’t move under his fingers. “She’s right, Steve,” he murmurs. He lifts his gaze, and the familiarity of his gaze has Steve feeling as if air is being stolen from his lungs. “It’ll help you.”

“I don’t feel like wasting my energy in doing things I don’t feel like doing,” Steve says in their general direction, and then he’s pushing himself away from the desk. “My friends need me, and I’m going to find them.”

He can feel two sets of eyes watching him leave, and he makes himself walk away.

* * *

Hours come and go like the rush of a stream and Steve finds himself in the training room a couple of days later. He’s hitting the punching bag with enough force that it shudders underneath his hits, the LED lights glaring upon his form as if they’re all criticising him for not doing things the right way.

Staying confined in the Compound is starting to make Steve feel like ants are marching their lil’ feet across his skin. He knows he’s restless, and he’s been trying to force it out through some workout in hopes that it’ll settle something in him. And it does, maybe for a minute or two, before he’s back to being pent up with a whole lot of energy he doesn’t know what to do with.

It’s starting to mess with him, because he’s seeing Sam more frequently than he should.

Sam at the dining table, joining others for breakfast like he used to do. Sam on the bench with Natasha. Sam sitting on the couch of the living room and watching the news with him. 

Steve thinks he’s really going insane. Down the damn rabbit hole of talking cats and spinning roads and queens wearing red hearts. If he doesn’t handle this soon and dig out all these hallucinations of his best friend from his head, Steve is going to jump out of another fucking skyscraper just to make him go away.

“What in the _fuck_ ,” he mutters darkly under his breath, punching the bag a little harder than usual, the dog tags he wears tinkering under the force. He _can’t_ jump out of a building. Not only because that would probably be how Steve would materialise _Bucky_ to join Sam in kicking his ass, but Natasha will give him shit until he dies from his state of simply not giving a fuck about himself.

People are going to accuse him of being a dumbass, but, _again_ , if he doesn’t have any fucks to give, then why should _they_ care how he treats himself?

They shouldn’t, he’s _fine_ , in the same sense that he thinks Sam is the only addition of his umbrella term of ‘fine’. 

He’s _fine_ — he can feed himself, he can fight, he can help other people. It’s normal, he’s doing the things he’s been doing since before he even got the damn serum.

He’s _fine._

“You’re not fucking fine, Steve.” Sam pops up beside him, like the ghost he is. And he sounds exasperated rather than angry.

With a rageful scream, Steve punches the bag hard enough that it swings violently away from him. It doesn’t break like he hopes it would, sturdy and equipped for superhuman strength, because of course it fucking would.

Panting, Steve stares at his bare feet, sweat dripping from his temple and into his beard that he harshly wipes it away with the back of his hand. 

“I’m still here,” Sam says, as if it’s his fault. Steve knows it is, because he fucking _made_ him. Steve refuses to look at him just yet. “You could’ve just let me go.”

“No,” Steve growls, before snapping his mouth shut. 

He needs— 

He needs a fucking break.

“Hey.”

Steve looks up, and sees Carol Danvers standing at the entrance in her suit, leaning against the doorframe with one hand on her hip. Or rather half of the suit, from how she’s only wearing the bottom part of it while donning in a black shirt, indicating that she has just arrived at the Avengers Compound. 

Jesus, how long has she been there? Panic grabs hold onto him. How much did she see?

Steve arranges his expression into something neutral as he wipes back his hair, immediately straightening his spine at her presence. “Colonel Danvers.”

She arches an eyebrow at the formal title, but indulges him nonetheless by standing properly onto her two feet. “Captain Rogers.” She nods towards the punching bag in front of him. “How’s that doing for you?”

When Steve follows where she’s gesturing at, he realises that Sam isn’t there anymore. It makes him release a breath he doesn’t know he’s been holding. Sam will show up again, though. And Steve thinks he has to apologise.

He mentally shakes it away, and instead answers with, “I think I’d rather have it alive and beat me up.”

It makes her let out a small laugh, and Carol walks into the room. “You want a sparring partner?”

Steve has never fought with her before and if he’s honest, he’s rather curious about how that’ll go. “You’re just going to drag my ass through the ground.”

She grins, standing beside him. “Sure am.” The careless confidence makes Steve smile. “But, you look like you need it.”

He pushes back his damp hair. “That obvious, huh?”

She shrugs. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. But, I’m told I’m good at beating whatever problems people have out of them.”

Steve chuckles. “If that’s the case,” He settles into position, and she grins back at him in response as she mimics his posture.

When they start moving, it’s easy. He’s familiar with her technique, and she’s familiar with his. He’s been in the army while she’s been in the air force, after all. 

She’s able to block every hit he’s been trying to land on her, looking barely affected that he’s forced to change his tactic; he’s harder on her, faster than he usually is whenever he fights with Natasha or Sam or Tony, honing his attention more onto what she would do and how he’d be able to deflect it. The only one who’s managed to par with him in hand-to-hand combat is Bucky, and he knows how Steve works from the inside out.

Steve tries to roundhouse her to the floor, but Carol manages to duck down in time for his leg to swing above her head. She’s quick to move forward and slams her palm onto the middle of his chest, causing him to stumble back that some air is forcefully pushed out of him when he wheezes.

Steve rubs his sternum, repositioning himself so that he has both feet planted on the ground. “I’m guessing this is nothing to you.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Carol collects her hair into a ponytail, snapping it in place with a rubber band she pulls off from her wrist. “You have great endurance. You have a strategy in taking me down. I appreciate that.”

“Well, you could’ve just roasted me and be done with it.” 

“If I wanted to roast you, I would. Bye-bye, Captain America.”

Steve huffs out a laugh. “Okay, fine.” He cocks up an eyebrow. “Whoever has their back on the ground first, loses?”

Carol rolls her shoulders. “You’re on.”

When they start back up again, Steve tries to catalog how she fights, finding a way to predict her next move. But as time goes by, he begins to see a glint of metal, plated against her elbow and fingers. There’s a flash of dark hair, flicking in and out of his conscience.

When Steve has one of his arms braced against hers, trying to get the upper hold of the situation, stormy blue eyes stare back at him rather than her normal brown. It makes him lose his footing, and Carol manages to flip him on the mat as if he weighs nothing, an arm pressing against his neck.

Steve blinks, and the image of Bucky is gone. 

Carol seems to consider him for a while before she pulls back her arm, and instead plops on the ground beside him with her legs crossed. “You were distracted,” she states, looking down at him. “Everything okay?”

“Peachy,” he replies, pushing himself up so that he can sit properly. “I’m fine.”

Fine.

He’s— Fine.

“Alright,” she simply says, and that makes Steve lift his head from where he’s been staring at his own hands. 

“Some people would’ve insisted on helping me.”

“Well, that’s true.” She stretches her legs in front of her. “But, I don’t think it’s any of my business if you choose to not ask help from others. I don’t want to make you feel obliged to agree just because you think it’s rude to not accept help from them.”

“Maybe,” Steve finds himself subconsciously playing with the dog tags around his neck, pulling her attention towards it.

“You’re still wearing yours?”

“They’re not mine,” Steve shows her the wording on it, and _James B. Barnes_ with the rest of his details winks back at them. “It was with the rest of his stuff when I first got access to them back in 2011. It was one of the few things that didn’t disintegrate under my hands when I wanted to have a closer look.”

“You two swap dog tags?” She asks doubtfully. “Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?”

Steve smiles. “When you’ve been growing up with Bucky your whole life, the sharing doesn’t really stop.”

“Up until now?”

“Well,” Steve lets the dog tags fall from his hand. “Until he was here.”

Carol doesn’t comment on that, supporting her weight by leaning back on her palms that are resting against the mat. “We used to do that, Maria and I. Just share stuff that sometimes we forgot who it actually belongs to. I don’t mind,” She smiles fondly at a memory he doesn’t know. “And then, she had Monica. We’re sharing her, too.”

Steve stares at her. He realises if he wanted to see how he looks like whenever he’s looking at Bucky, he can just take a look at Carol when she’s talking about Maria. “Did you ever do it? Tie the knot, I mean. If you don’t mind me asking.”

Carol waves his worries away. “We got eloped in the ’90s,” she explains, pulling out a necklace with a ring hanging onto it from under her shirt. It’s a simple gold band with a small diamond on it, but it looks loved from how Steve’s able to see the little scratches on the band. She rubs a thumb across the stone. “After I remembered everything that happened before I became,” She gestures to herself with her other hand. “This.”

“That must’ve been nice,” Steve says, and Carol nods.

“It was. The reception wasn’t big when we got back home, but there were a few people who got there, especially Fury.” She chuckles. “He bought us a fancy radio. Maria still uses it until now, even if I tell her it’s already outdated.”

“How is she?” Steve asks, because he’s heard of Monica Rambeau from Harlem, and Sam mentions her to be a daughter of Maria Rambeau, one of the finest pilots back then, and someone Sam looks up to. Maria retires from the air force after Monica graduates from college. Steve doesn’t connect the dots that it all relates back to Carol until then.

“She’s fine, still a little annoyed that I had to leave home early. I told her I’ll come back next month.” She puts the ring back to where she got it from. “Now that she’s not working anymore, sometimes we’ll fly off to space while I do my own work with others. She’ll help with a gun, and Monica gets roped in whenever she gets details of where we went. She’s back home this time, instead of being a workaholic at Harlem.”

“I’m glad both of them are fine,” Steve tells her, and she looks at him then.

“Yeah,” she agrees quietly. “When I heard about Thanos being here, and then Fury’s pager started beeping, I flew back to Earth as soon as I could. When I went back home, Maria was still there. Monica too, hoping her mom was still okay after what happened.” She pauses. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t come here sooner, help sooner.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Steve assures her. “We thought we had him then, when Wanda destroyed Vision’s stone. But, he used the other stones to reverse time and brought Vision back just to kill him again, and,” He doesn’t know how to continue without wanting to just up and leave, so he settles with fiddling with Bucky’s dog tags again. “Everyone else.”

She rests a hand on top of his knee. “We’ll get through this,” she says gravely. “We’ll find a way to get them back.”

Steve stares at her for a while, before looking down at the dog tags he’s holding in his palm. “I know we would.”

Carol stands to her feet, offering her hand for him to take. “Well then, we should get started now, don’t you think?”

Steve accepts it before she hauls him off the mat. “You found something?”

“I’m not sure, honestly,” Carol confesses. Steve picks up the face towel from the bench at the other side of the room. “But, it’s something. And I want to go through it with all of you before we can confirm anything.”

“That’s fair,” Steve wipes his face with the towel. “I’ll clean myself up and meet you with the others later.”

She gives a small mock salute. It’s funny, because she outranks him, by far, and he’s supposed to do that first. “I’ll see you there.”

He salutes back at her, just to complete the circle of irony they find themselves in.

* * *

The pub is mostly music rather than people.

Steve knows the gin can do shit-all to him every time he drinks it, and he’s starting to get tired of nursing the glasses. There are three empty ones in front of him, the fourth glass held loosely in his hand — the bartender is silently serving him what he needs every time Steve raises his hand for a refill.

Steve’s been playing with the dog tags again, gripping them in his palm from where he has his knuckles pressed on top of his heart. He can practically feel the pity reaching out to him in waves from the bartender and some guy Steve’s come to notice in his third drink, but he can’t bring himself to give a damn. Yeah, sure, stare at him all they want, he doesn’t care.

It's been a little over two years since the snap, and Steve and the rest of his team has come up empty so many times. He knows they’re all starting to feel the strain of it, but he also sees how they’re still trying their best, going out of Earth to find what they can and inform the rest of them what they found.

Steve can’t say the same thing for himself; he’s been feeling useless at most times that resorting to long drives has become to asking some advice from a friend. The only answers he’s gotten is how 1) time doesn’t care where you’re going, so a 4 AM supper is totally acceptable 2) the road can go forever or nothing at all if he wills it to be, and 3) Natasha is right about the truck. His back will break into half if he drives more than three hours on his bike.

Sam comes and goes whenever he feels like it, and Steve lets him be.

What can he do, anyway? What do you do when you have your ghost friend standing by your shoulder because you can’t accept the fact he’s gone?

Steve finishes the rest of his gin, and that’s when someone slips into the stool beside him.

“You’re new,” the stranger says, a man with a tattoo of vines on his wrist. “I’ve never seen you in this part of Sheffield before.”

“In this pub?” Steve looks at him then, takes a quick note of the dark curly hair and bright green eyes. “Or just Sheffield in general?”

“Both,” the man seems glad that Steve’s talking to him, and when he smiles, his dimples make a dramatic show. “I’m just gonna ask now, what’s an American doing in England?”

“Some work,” Steve replies, and asks for another round of gin. He’s been going through the UK’s branch of SHIELD, searching for something Peggy would’ve left about the Tesseract that she doesn’t want the rest of the others to want to know. Steve finds nothing.

“You just got here?”

“Two days ago, actually,” Steve offers a murmur of thanks to the bartender before giving his attention to the man beside him. He has his own bottle of beer, half full from where it sits in front of him.

“When are you going back?” The man asks, and Steve looks at him for a while, just to see where this is going. The man only stares back at him with a hint of innocence when he lets his bangs fall onto his forehead.

Ah. So, it’s that.

Bucky’s done the same thing lots of times back in the 30s and 40s, and Steve, like all the poor suckers Bucky used to direct that kind of attention to, would fall for it every time. Only Steve, the emotionally repressed man he is, hasn’t done anything to act on that attention even if Bucky’s been trying hard for Steve to do _something_.

Well. They haven’t done _nothing_ , there was _once_ , or _twice_ , but they haven’t talked about it in the kind of depth they’re supposed to. All hundred years' worth of that said depth and both of them choose to ignore it.

“In another two more,” Steve says, and this man looks hopeful for a moment before he downs his beer. Steve realises he’s already drunk and is doing a great job at concealing that. “How many of those did you have?”

“Three or four,” the man admits, putting the bottle back down. “I’m fine, really, and I think— no, I _know_ ,” He’s leaning forward then, and Steve can smell the beer on his breath. “That I’m kind of interested in you.”

An eyebrow jumps up in surprise. “Very forward,” Steve feels himself relax as the man chuckles, shrugging his shoulders in a way that says he knows he’s caught and he doesn’t really care. Steve taps his fingers against his glass. “What’s your name?”

The man is drunker than he realises, because he ducks his head as if to share a secret, smiling wide. “Mike,” he stage whispers, laughing slightly to himself with all the humour of someone laughing at his own joke. He has a pretty smile though, especially when those dimples show themselves off again. “You never told me yours.”

“Steve,” he replies, offering his hand that has Mike shaking it. 

It’s a night of flirting and brushing their hands against each other when they know the other is watching. When Mike brings Steve back to his apartment, a two-room commodity with Mike’s roommate out for his night shift as a nurse, Steve thinks he needs this; he needs to have someone to need him this way again, he needs them to gasp against his jaw when he pushes them around a little, hand squeezing their ass.

Steve grabs Mike’s jaw when he tries to kiss him, and the responding whine he gets makes Steve tilt Mike’s head up to make sure he sees how serious he is when he speaks the next of his words. “No kissing. I can do your mouth anywhere on me, but not on mine. You understand?” 

Mike gives a small nod under his firm hold. The moment Steve lets go of him, Mike drops to his knees.

*~*~*

Steve doesn’t know what time it is; it’s late enough for the sun to hover right above the horizon, the orange hues touching everything within its path that even the grass threatens to be swallowed by its colour. The crickets and cicadas are coming out to sing their song, claiming themselves as the sun’s dance partners as the day ends.

What he does know is that Bucky has already finished his chores, has fed the goats, and ushered them back to their pen for the night. What Steve does know is how the Border Tribe children have gone home after their parents call for them for dinner, and how they give both he and Bucky their goodbyes before running off.

What Steve knows is that they’re alone, and he _misses_ him. 

He misses Bucky.

Bucky misses him too, a sure thing that electrifies in the air they’re in, sizzling above their skin. It’s familiar, but it’s also _real_. It’s here again after so many years of denial that Steve thinks if they haven’t pushed this so far back as they did, they wouldn’t have felt the full _want_ of it all. It’s heavy, and it’s light. But Steve sees those grey-blue eyes, how they don’t look away from Steve as much as Steve’s just staring at him. And Bucky—

_Bucky_ knows what he’s doing, because all it takes for him is to look at Steve the way he’s been looking at him all those years, and then Steve has his hand clamped tightly on his waist as he kisses him against the wall of his hut. The clothes he’s wearing are thick and soft underneath his touch, but Steve is more focused on the way Bucky heaves out a shuddering breath as if he’s been holding onto it for a long time.

“Jesus,” Bucky murmurs against his lips, and Steve feels lightning under the scratch of his nails when Bucky drags them up his arm before gripping onto his neck. “ _Jesus_. I miss you,” he breathes in between the kisses Steve can’t stop to give him. “I miss you so much. I couldn’t— I’m—"

Bucky is unable to say anything more, because he’s kissing him back, hard and demanding, and Steve groans in agreement from where he has him in his arms. “I wasn’t sure,” he pants, as if the air has already been sucked out of him when it’s all Bucky. Just _Bucky_ . “I wasn’t sure at first. But then, you’re _here_ , with that _look_ , and I just—“

Steve doesn’t stop himself from claiming his mouth again, arms wrapped tightly around him as Bucky laughs breathlessly against him with his arm holding onto his shoulders. “How many years did it take for you to do this again?” He demands in a harsh whisper, leaning back to talk that has Steve eagerly chasing after him. But, Bucky stops Steve with two fingers on his chin, and then Bucky’s enamored with how his beard feels when his eyes drop to it. “Since you were what, sixteen? How many years is that?”

“Too long,” Steve can’t stop staring at how red those lips are, at how he wants to kiss them again all too soon. “Too fucking long. I don’t know why we didn’t do it again.”

“Because we were cowards,” Bucky presses his lips at the corner of his mouth, just beside where his fingers are pressed on his chin. Steve thinks he might vibrate out of his own bones from how this is affecting him. “Still are, maybe.”

Steve wraps his hand around his wrist and turns his head to kiss Bucky again, and it’s hard and rough that Steve pillows the blow with a hand at the back of his head when the wall collides against his knuckles. He doesn’t mind, doesn’t even realise it, not when Bucky is licking into his mouth.

Steve’s ridiculously hard in pants, and Bucky seems to notice this when he groans the moment his wandering hand cups itself on top of his bulge. Bucky squeezes him through the rough material of his pants, making Steve keel over when he gasps into his mouth. 

“Fuck, _Steve_ ,” Bucky cries out when Steve picks him up, arms bracing under his knees as he brings Bucky to the single bed.

Steve lays him down gently, peppering kisses up his neck and behind his ear, sucking a bruise there that has Bucky rutting against him, hips rolling against his that Steve has to clamp a hand onto him to stop him from moving. If Bucky continues like that anymore, Steve won’t last.

It pulls a whine out of him, and Steve nips his ear to reprimand him. “You do that anymore, and we’re finished.”

Because Steve knows once the high goes down, once they’ve gone soft and come to their senses, there’s going to be a chance where they’ll be like before; they’ll be parting on the wrong footing. They’ll smile and talk like they used to, but they don’t know how they’re going to handle the silence that comes with _this._

They’re morons, Steve knows. But right now, that’s Future Steve’s problem, because right then, Bucky is looking at him like _that_ again.

“Fine,” Bucky growls, because he’s a brat like that, but he knows what’s at stake here. _Morons_ , the both of them. He lifts his chin, oozing with defiance, the glint in his eyes bright and treacherous. It only makes Steve want to kiss the cleft Bucky has been having his whole life. “Do it your way.”

“That’s a dangerous request,” Steve comments idly, but he has his hand dragging up his leg, pushing Bucky’s red shuka above his knee as his fingers dance at the skin there. It makes Bucky huff out a breath of laughter. “There won’t be any take-backs.”

“I don’t do take-backs,” Bucky watches him through his lashes, and that tugs something deep in the middle of Steve’s chest that his hand pauses against Bucky’s thigh. “I know how you are.”

It makes Steve sucks in a deep breath, and a hopeless groan escapes when he buries his face into Bucky’s neck. “You’re killing me,” Steve murmurs, lips moving against his skin that the prickle of his beard causes Bucky to squirm. Steve holds onto his waist again, right above the belt that’s holding his shuka together. “You’re killing me, and you’re enjoying it.”

“Maybe,” Bucky gasps out softly when Steve rubs his face against him more, his arm looped around his neck to hang onto him. “Maybe, you’re as bad as I am.”

“Maybe,” Steve echoes, and he’s back to caressing Bucky’s leg, bringing it over the hard muscle of his thigh before they flitter across the buckle of the belt. “Tell me this is a mistake. Tell me you don’t want this.”

Bucky palms against Steve’s own belt and loosens it around his waist, tugging on the open flap with his only hand. Steve growls, kissing him for his troubles. “I’d be lyin’,” Bucky grits out, almost frantic in between their kisses. “I’d be lyin’, Steve, I swear to God. And I can’t— I can’t do that with you right now.”

“Then say it,” Steve mumbles against his mouth, tugging on Bucky’s belt impatiently. “Say it like you mean it.”

“I do mean it,” Bucky’s breathing heavily, spreading his fingers against Steve’s abdomen. “This ain’t a mistake, not when I need you.”

At those words, Bucky reaches up under his pillow and pulls out a bottle of lube, and Steve barks out laughing. 

“All cities have pharmacies,” Bucky explains himself smugly, and Steve can’t help but kiss him again.

Steve’s gentle in unbuckling his belt and unwrapping Bucky from his shuka until he’s naked. The evening light is already tinging with pink, and it runs across the expanse of his skin that Steve finds himself staring at him. 

Bucky turns his head away, suddenly shy under his gaze, and Steve lets him when he’s busy tracing the lines of his chest, the sharp edge of his jaw. Steve touches the hollow of his throat, smooths his fingers across his clavicle, and near the black cloth wrapped around his stub. They travel over his ribs, and he revels at how soft his skin looks under the dying light. 

Steve looks up, and he gets to see Bucky unraveling under his touch, shaking underneath his fingers. But he doesn’t look away when Steve catches his gaze, eyes determined and firm, and Steve realises this is what devotion has led them to.

It shouldn’t hook onto his bones as much as it does, but it _does._

Steve offers a kiss on his cheek, shushing him that he’ll be alright, before he’s pouring a generous amount of lube onto his fingers. He presses a kiss at the corner of Bucky’s lips, the same place he kissed Steve earlier, and prods a finger into his entrance.

Bucky keens under the breach, and Steve softly encourages him as he stretches him open, trying to get him used to the sudden intrusion of his finger. 

“Steve,” Bucky whispers, and Steve hums in response, letting his other hand smooth back his dark hair.

“Do you think you’re ready for another?” He asks. Bucky nods, and Steve lets another finger join the other as he stretches him open. 

Bucky groans, and Steve distracts him by shoving his mouth onto his and kisses him like he’s been wanting to do this for years — he does. He’s been thinking about it the first time he sees Bucky after he gets a whiff of him coming out of the cryo that has Steve scrambling back to Wakanda. With the smell of his skin under his nose, Steve is grateful he’s able to have a taste of him, to touch him again.

At the back of his mind, Steve knows they should talk about this more. They should say what they really want from this, if they even want them to get together.

Again, not Present Steve’s problem.

Steve bites into his bottom lip, adding the third finger that has Bucky gasping into his mouth. Steve is relentless in pumping them in and out of his entrance, twisting his wrist that has Bucky writhing underneath him.

“You’re doing so good, honey,” Steve coos into his ear, fingers circling around his hard dick that has Bucky crying out from the sensitivity. Steve tightens his hold a bit, brushing a thumb up his length. “You’re doing so well now.”

Steve jerks him off in tandem with how he’s fucking Bucky with his fingers. Steve rubs his thumb over the slit of his dick, smearing pre-come all over the head, and he enjoys seeing the way his fingers are being swallowed by the tight ring of his hole. Bucky’s biting hard into his bottom lip, eyes scrunched closed as he tries to collect what’s left of himself.

“Come on, I need to see you,” Steve nudges his nose with his, shoving his fingers into him in the process that it bumps against his prostate. Bucky chokes out in surprise, eyes snapping open that allows Steve to see how there are only thin rings of blue in them, the blacks of them almost taking over. He grins. “There you are, sweetheart, I was beginning to look for you.”

“Fuckin’—“ Bucky’s chokes again when Steve kisses him, teeth clanking from the collision.

“Mm-hm,” Steve hums, fingers squeezing at the base of his dick.

Bucky grips onto Steve’s nape, fingers tangled in his hair as he breathes through clenched teeth. “I’m not gonna last long if you keep doing that,” Bucky warns a hot breath against his mouth.

Steve lets the tip of his tongue teased over his upper lip. “That’s the idea, sweetheart.”

Bucky doesn’t get to reply when Steve slides down his fingers and holds onto his tight balls, pressing the heel of his palm onto them. It has Bucky sobbing out his release, shooting off his come against Steve’s arm and his shirt. That’s when he realises he’s still clothed, only his pants unbuttoned from Bucky’s earlier advances.

Bucky melts into the bed, body shining with sweat that Steve can’t help himself in having another taste, lavishing the salty tang of him by licking a stripe up his neck while the fingers in his ass prod against his prostate again. Bucky whines, holding onto his wrist as if to push him away.

“Too much,” Bucky wheezes, and Steve takes pity on him by pulling them out, causing Bucky to curve his back off the mattress with a long groan of satisfaction.

Steve frames Bucky’s hips with his hands. “You okay?"

There’s barely any light left, but Steve can see how Bucky’s hair is spread across the pillow, his skin glistening from the strain of their little workout in bed. Bucky puffs out a huff of chuckles, reaching out for him that Steve has no trouble meeting halfway. Bucky holds onto the side of his neck. “I’m great,” Bucky admits quietly, smiling lopsidedly at him.

It has sparks taking off in his chest, and Steve nuzzles at his cheek. “I’m glad. Because we’re not done yet.”

“Yeah, no shit. What the hell is this?” Bucky tugs onto the hem of his shirt, and Steve’s just thankful he’s changed into his white shirt when he first arrives at Bucky's hut, because getting off all that harness and buckles isn’t just ideal now. Steve shucks off the clothing with one smooth gesture and throws it blindly away, letting it fall at wherever the fuck it went. 

“Well, we’ve been busy doing other things,” Steve teases, pushing down his pants and underwear next. Bucky reaches for the solar-powered lamp beside his bed, switching it on that the yellow light blinds them for a moment. When Steve blinks it away, he notices how hungrily Bucky watches him. Steve pushes the pants off the bed, too. “We just didn’t have time for that.”

“We do now,” Bucky says firmly, pushing himself up so that he’s sitting directly in front of Steve. It’s not a loss that he’s gotten hard between his legs again. 

Bucky lets out a yelp when Steve drags him on top of him, and hisses out painfully when Bucky bumps into his boner.

Bucky notices this, and slowly lets Steve’s dick drag between his asscheeks, still wet from all the lube. It makes Steve grip onto his hips harder, stopping Bucky from moving or he’s just going to K.O. Steve on the spot from all the blood that’s throbbing there.

Slyly, Bucky gazes at him from under his lashes while Steve feels like he’s a bull trying to catch its breath. “I was trynna help, y’know?”

Steve heaves out air through his nose. “Of course you’d think you’re trying to _help_.”

Bucky laughs, and Steve shuts him up with a kiss.

*~*~*

It’s just before dawn when Steve dresses himself, the early morning air cool from how they have left the window cracked open.

Mike is staring at him, the damp face towel Steve has cleaned him up with is limp in his hand from where he’s leaning against his bed frame, the covers pulled to his waist. “Who’s he?”

“Who’s who?” Steve asks back, shrugging onto his jacket. 

“The man on your chest,” Mike nods to where the dog tags are kept under Steve’s shirt. His hand twitches to cover it, but Steve refrains himself just in time. “Is he your partner?”

Steve stops, looking back at Mike, at this stranger with who he has shared the night. Mike’s curious, and he looks like he wouldn’t prod if Steve refuses him an answer.

Steve shoves his wallet and phone into his pockets. “You can say that.”

“Not everyone wears someone else’s dog tags, you know,” Mike tells him, and Steve’s already lacing up his boots. “Whoever this James is, he must be real special to you.”

Steve tugs hard onto the knot before straightening himself up to stand. The same sharp curiosity that shouldn’t exist at this time of the night is still aimed at him. Mike is supposed to be knocked out from the booze and the sex. “He is.”

“So, why tonight?”

Steve smiles wryly. So, he is the type to prod. “You ask that many questions to your one night stands?”

Mike lets his own smile twitch up. “Maybe.” Steve can see how he studies him with the lamplight, and that’s how he knows it’s time to go. “Is wanting to know your current fuck buddy so bad?”

“One night stands don’t usually entail things like,” Steve waves his hand between them. “This. You don’t know what you’d find out, and if you’d like it or not.”

“It’s just one night, like you said,” Mike shrugs. “We’re not going to see each other again. So, what’s the harm in knowing a little about your one night stands?”

Steve opens the bedroom door. “Well, for one thing, that’s when you start to get nosy.”

Steve leaves the apartment with Mike gaping after him.

* * *

Steve’s been sitting on his bike for fifteen minutes.

The VA still looks the same, as far as Steve can see. Same colour, same shape, same height.

Sam’s gotten off the bike and leans by the handles to stare at it too, not saying a word the whole time they’ve been loitering around as if they don’t have anything else to do.

Well, they don’t, see. It’s why they’re there in the first place.

Steve scratches his beard. “This is insane,” he mutters under his breath.

Sam shoots him a dull look. “You’re the one who’s insane.”

Steve can’t say anything when the blinding truth’s been spat directly into his face. It makes him scratch his beard again, and Sam rolls his eyes as he straightens himself up. “The least you coulda done is trim that animal you have on your face,” he says, already walking towards where the VA should be.

When it’s obvious Steve isn’t following him, Sam swivels back around. Steve lowers his head from where it’s been tilting upwards, trying to find the tip of the building for no other reason than to avoid this, before leveling Sam with a grimace. Sam only stares expectantly back at him. “Well? What are you waiting for?”

Steve sighs, but he unmounts his bike and follows Sam into the building.

Everything is what it used to be as they walk down the hallways; there are new posters, ones that assure you that you aren’t alone, that there are always people who’d want to help. They’re all pinned onto the information board that’s starting to get full, and there are phone numbers attached to it if anyone wants further details.

They’re also hoping for new volunteers.

There’s a round table filled with pamphlets of the same things, and Steve lingers by it to let his gaze flit through them. He plucks one that says ‘We Are Here Together’ in black, bold letters and flips it open. A few doors away, the faint murmurs of the VA takes its usual place in the hall.

Sam regards him from his place by the wall. “You’re stalling.” The lines around his face soften. “You can leave, if you want.”

Steve purses his lips, looking emptily at the pamphlet in his hands. 

“Steve,” a hand cups his elbow, causing Steve to flinch as he snaps his head up to see Sam’s kind face. His touch sizzles through his skin. “Do you want to stay?”

Steve locks his jaw, a whirlpool in his head. “I don’t know,” he mumbles out in a low voice.

Sam offers him a smile. “You don’t exactly have to do this today, if you’re still considering it. You can leave and come back.”

Steve looks over where the hall is. He’s able to see some people listening to the person talking at the front.

He takes a deep breath, and closes the pamphlet. He walks towards the hall.

Not all the chairs are occupied, allowing people to skip a space between them from where they’re seated. But, it’s more than the last time Steve has been here, and that seems like ages ago when, really, rather than six years have passed.

A lot can happen in six years, Steve muses internally. Too much has happened since then, far more than six years could be packed with. 

Steve takes his place on the plastic chair right at the back, the row where no one's sitting at, and listens to the person who’s leaning against the podium with her elbows. 

“We’ve been through some major bullshit this past decade, I’m not gonna lie to you,” she says, pulling some chuckles from the crowd. She smiles easily, holding onto a Rubik’s cube. “The Snap had to be the worst. And we can’t do anything else but roll with the punches, even if we’re gonna end up on the ground at some point.”

“But that’s okay, I’d say stay down for a while. Feel the dirt underneath your body, close your eyes, take a breather. Just let whatever machine that’s been controlling your life take its course above you.”

“We are living in a situation that is so unassuming that we’re forced to accommodate to it. So, whenever you’re feeling helpless, or just feel like you’re not doing enough even if you’re juggling a three people kind of job instead of one,” she continues. “You’re allowed to feel some injustice and exhaustion. You’re _allowed_ to feel hopeless and useless. You’re _allowed_ to stop doing these things, even a little while, to just catch a break.”

“You acknowledge this situation. You acknowledge how you should get some rest, and then you find a way to move with this new world. It’s shitty as hell, and none of us want it in the first place, but _you’re_ the one who’s controlling the levers in your life. So, if you gotta stop some things to take a rest, then do it. No one should prevent you from doing it.”

“There are times when we’d accuse ourselves by saying things like, ‘Why are you stopping? What are you doing? This isn’t the way, get up. Don’t stop’ and you’d start to wonder if you’re even doing enough.” She lets her eyebrows jump into her hairline. “We’re living in a dystopian world. It sucks as hell, we’re all tired, and you _should_ tell that little voice to fuck off.”

The crowd laughs softly again, and Steve watches how she straightens up this time, Rubik’s cube still in hand. “Taking care of yourself is not a waste of time,” she takes emphasis on this, as if to drill it into their heads. “We’ll make it through, even if it’s going to take longer than we’d want it to. But, the important thing is, you’ll make it through.”

It’s minutes later, when the crowds have dispersed, Steve stays back for a while to help stack the chairs at the side of the hall. A few more others helped too, before they left and it’s just him alone with the lady from earlier.

She’s watching him, Steve tries not to look caught after he literally just carried a tall stack of fifteen chairs in one go. “Hi.”

“Hi,” she calls back, as he walks to the front of the hall. “You’re new here.”

“I came here before,” Steve shoves his hands into his jeans pockets. “A while ago.”

She squints, trying to make him out. Steve prays she doesn’t find anything she’s not supposed to. Then, her eyes brighten. “Your Sam’s friend, aren’t you? His jogging buddy.”

Steve nods at her, hoping that’s all she realises about him. “I was, am.”

She notices his slip and worry crosses over her expression. “Did he...?”

Steve knows she’s asking because sometimes, people would want to know because you look like you’ve been miserable for too long. He doesn’t blame her. He knows he looks as shitty as he feels.

It’s also because she’s Sam’s friend, Steve chastises himself. Of course, she’s going to ask. Of course, she cares.

It’s all he can do to not be too sad when Steve smiles apologetically. “He didn’t make it.”

“Oh,” she says in a small voice, and Steve relates to that word and how it pulls out of her. “Were you there when he…?”

She can’t seem to finish her questions now. Steve’s forced to shoulder most of this conversation because _he_ can’t show her a glimpse of what’s been going on for almost three years; if she realises that he’s manifested his close friend and has no control of him, she might send him some _real_ help. Steve doesn’t need that. Coming to the VA is just a test drive on his part.

“No,” Steve replies, and it’s a regret he’s been carrying on his back. “I wasn’t.”

There’s a sort of silence that’s borderline uncomfortable and awkward that usually comes with strangers, and Steve finds himself racing to think of something else to say. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”

“Claire,” she says with a polite smile, quick to bury her sadness by offering a hand. Steve shakes it and has a fleeting thought at how, just maybe, she’s as bad as he is. Or maybe, she’s just that good. “I'm a volunteer like Sam was. We’ve been contacting each other for a while even after he hasn’t been coming here as much as he used to. Got some old work to do, he said. And then, some years ago, he stopped contacting altogether.” The corner of her mouth pinches up. “I was hoping he’d be okay. A lot of the regulars who got to know him missed him.”

Steve nods. “I’m sorry I can’t give you anything more than that.”

Because he can’t just tell her that Sam’s been with him, until the end, to take down a power-hungry Titan who kills populations for fun. Steve doesn’t want to tell her how Sam made himself a running fugitive because of him. Steve doesn’t want her connecting the dots between the Falcon and Captain America.

“It’s alright,” she says. She looks at him then, as if trying to make him out. “You’ve been close friends with him?”

“We ran a few laps together before he decided I wasn’t annoying him that much,” he says with a smile, making her chuckle. “We’ve been friends since.”

“Sam has that kind of effect on people,” Claire admits. “It’s why everyone likes him here. He’s been one of our oldest volunteers, so telling me that he’s gone now,” She smiles again, the same sad one Steve’s been trying to hide from her. “It sucks.”

Steve can’t argue with that. “It does.”

When he sits back on his bike, staring at where he’s been holding onto his helmet, he realises what it means for Sam to do the things he did to follow Steve into fires of destruction; he left all of _that_ behind, all the people who knew him for him, just to make sure Steve didn’t get his ass shot. Sam Wilson is a man who would leave footprints in your heart, and no one could ever forget him if they can help it.

_Good_. Sam should be remembered in all the ways Steve wants him to be remembered. If these people could live up to his memory, then Sam wouldn’t die with the yellowing posters and the frequently moved plastic chairs.

Steve wears his helmet. He drives away. 

If the thought of coming back there sparks in his head, he ignores it for now.

* * *

“They’re growing,” Natasha informs him one day, when she shows Steve surveillance of The Light in another factory located in Seattle. Except they look like a crowd in a concert now, ten times as many as they have been three years ago. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they have branches from outside the country.”

“They’ve been busy,” Steve notes, watching another video of a small group of them in an alley, holding candles in their palms with their hoods up as they walk up to a house. The owner peaks from the window, and whatever transpired makes the group walk to the back of the house. 

“They had time to pull in more people,” Natasha agrees, pausing the video. “I’ve been tracking their movements for the past couple of months, and all they’ve done is called people from their homes and gone back to that factory of theirs for their bi-weekly meetings.”

Steve crosses his arms, squinting at the black robes. “The pointy hoodies are _really_ fucking familiar.”

“Starts with a K, ends with a K?” Natasha inquires archingly, a smile crawling on her face.

Steve gusts out a breath through his nose, reaching out to zoom onto the hologram. “We do _not_ need another Nazi resurrection.”

“They’ve always been there,” she points out. “It’s just now, they’ve morphed into something else and they’ve gotten bolder. They think their numbers are bigger now and that they can win.”

“I know, and I hate them,” Steve says bluntly, swiping onto another video where The Light is holding a public talk at a park. Specifically, Central Park. “They’re really sticking out their necks this time.”

“They wanna be known. You know how it is.”

“Too well,” he mutters. 

“And they’re leaving messages everywhere,” Natasha shows him pictures of white sprayed symbols of cupped hands holding a single candle. They’re all over bricked walls, the sidewalk, and even car windows. “There are complaints of how they’re disrupting a few neighbourhoods with some chanting, and of course, the cops aren’t doing anything about it because they don’t care.”

“What are the chances of them joining this cult?” Steve muses.

Natasha scoffs. “High. I saw half a dozen of them wearing those robes once they clock out within this week alone.”

Steve studies the photos. “It’s not going to be long before something breaks. We have to find more about them. See if they’re planning anything.”

“I’m guessing you’re gonna stop it if it gets out of control?”

He glances at her. “You wanna join me?”

She cocks up an eyebrow. “I called you here, didn’t I?”

That night, they find themselves hiding in the shadows of the abandoned factory in Seattle, overlooking where the members of The Light are standing around and murmuring within themselves. There’s a possibility they’re waiting for their leader, who is nowhere to be seen yet from where both Steve and Natasha are crouching on the second floor of the factory, obscured by craters and boxes.

Winter crawls into the inactive factory through the high windows, the chill muffled slightly from how they’re indoors. Even if the heaters are out, The Light doesn’t seem bothered with the cold despite how thin their robes are. They could be bundled up inside, just as Steve and Natasha are as they watch over them quietly.

Then, Natasha nods to the parting crowd, and Steve follows her gaze and sees someone walking towards the middle of the floor with two other people behind them. The person stops as if he’s relishing the attention of his supporters who are currently there, waiting for his orders, before he reaches up to pull down his hood.

It’s a white man that can’t look over forty, with dark army cut hair and gaunt cheeks, his hooked nose crooked. He’s wearing a smile that’s far too thin as he looks around him, and it’s unpleasant even with the space Steve has between them. 

“Friends,” the leader booms out, his greeting echoing against the walls of the factory. “It brings me great joy to see how you’re all here again. And I welcome the new members who finally have their hearts opened to join us tonight.”

He talks about what has happened in the last two weeks, how people are interested to join The Light, and what it represents. Then, he’s talking about those who wouldn’t join their cult, and Steve leans forward subconsciously.

“They _will_ hear us,” the leader stresses out, meeting them all in the eye. “If your family refuses, if your siblings refuse, if your lover refuses, it’s time to _make_ them see. They are also The Light, they also hold the same goodness all of us do when we are chosen to stay here instead of being taken away. God sees the good in us. They need to realise this as much as we do. They just need to _see_ it.”

“We are the chosen and we are The Light,” the leader continues. “You will show them the way and bring them out of the dark tunnels. _You_ will be their guiding light. If they still refuse you, if they have rejected you for who you are, do not fret.” When he smiles again, it’s cynical and wrong. “They will see how wrong they are in the end.”

“As if that wasn’t creepy as hell,” Natasha mutters beside him. 

“He can’t be that cheesy,” Steve grumbles. “ _Their guiding light._ What the fuck.”

“It’s part of the job,” They watch how The Light is passing candles to everyone and lighting them up. “Obviously, they’re planning to get some attention. Whatever it is, it’s going to be big and flashy.”

“We gotta find something that’ll tell us where they’re going to hold it,” Steve looks around the factory. “Some intel we can look into.”

“We are The Light and we have prevailed,” the cluster of people under them begin to chant. “We are The Light and God has chosen us. Here we stand, and here we shall be.”

“Jesus,” Steve murmurs, disgusted.

They wait until all of them walk out, blowing out the candle as they go through the doorway. It isn’t until it’s only the leader and the two other people that have followed him in the beginning. Steve and Natasha slink nearer towards their way, trying to get a hold of what they’re saying.

“I assume everything is going according to plan?” The leader inquires.

“The required people will get the orders in an hour,” one of them answers. “They’ll know what to do when the time comes.”

“I’m sure they will,” the leader hums. “Once the message gets through, everyone would know how The Light isn’t merely a cult as they think.” He spreads his arms. “It’s a _revolution._ ”

“It’s going to catch the attention of the Avengers,” the other person warns. “What if they come and ruin everything?”

“Well, we’d just have to convince them to join us too,” the leader says, as if it’s obvious. “They’re chosen just like us. They’re here just like us. It’ll be to our advantage since they’re powerful people, and we _need_ powerful people.”

“Yeah, but what if they _don’t?”_

“Well, that’s easy,” The leader flaps his hand nonchalantly. “We stop them from disrupting our work.”

“I think the fuck not,” Natasha comments in a low tone.

“I’d like to see the plans again,” the leader says. One of them takes out a laptop from under his robe as if he’s been keeping it in a big-ass pocket Steve hasn’t seen, and brings it on top of one of the craters. Both he and Natasha bring themselves nearer, wanting to have a closer look.

Steve watches as she takes out an oval tracker from one of her compartments. She activates it with a slide of her finger.

Steve blinks, because the tracker sprouts out some legs as if it’s an alien bursting out of its sac. It moves around her palm, testing its legs, and clearly sentient in more ways than one.

“A black widow,” Steve realises in a hushed tone. “New toy?”

“I took a page out of Sam’s book,” Natasha shrugs, bringing her Spider Tracker near her eyes as she aims it towards the laptop. “Very handy.”

She flicks it off her palm. It slings shot through the air and attaches itself on the side of the laptop dead on. 

Bullseye.

“Is it downloading everything?”

“Everything,” Natasha confirms, watching the phone she has in her hands as hundreds of required data come rushing in. “It’ll be done in just a sec…”

It takes eight more seconds. The leader closes the laptop just as Natasha calls her small friend back to her.

“Now, what do we have here,” she hums, going through the phone while Steve watches the leader and his men leave the factory with a sweep of their robes.

“Oh.”

“What?” Steve turns his attention back to her, and a map of New York presents itself to them where there are several blinking red lights scattered around it. “Are those _bombs?_ ”

“No, they’re meeting points. They have every Light member set at their respective places for some sort of, what is this, convention?” She quickly reads through the data. “They’re doing an intervention, or if you wanna put it like what the leader said. A revolution.”

“An intervention for what? For us living the way we currently are?”

“It seems like it.” Natasha looks at him, and something settles on her face. “You think we should have a look at it.”

It’s not a question. “It’s an _intervention._ ” He stands up, feeling restless. “It means exactly what it means. Someone is going to get hurt.”

She goes through the intel again. “They’re doing it tomorrow night.”

Steve walks away. “We need more people.”

Steve finds himself in Bronx at 9 P.M., watching a handful of The Light by sitting on a bench from the other side of the road with a book and a cup of coffee in hand, mimicking the life of any other civilian. There are eight of them, and they’re all standing in a line with a large speaker by their feet. It’s playing the same bullshit Steve heard from yesterday, and it’s been going on for an hour.

He keeps his book open on his lap, and he looks down when he needs to and turns the pages every twenty-five seconds like clockwork. He can’t retain the words properly, but that doesn’t matter, not when he’s focused on the mission at hand.

He scratches his sideburn, discreetly pressing into his earpiece. “Rhodey, what’s the status?”

“Nothing, as of now,” Rhodey says back. “They’ve been playing the same propaganda for an hour while handing out those flyers. A crowd’s beginning to listen, though. How’s it going from your end?”

“Pretty much the same,” Steve replies under his breath, not looking away from his book. “They’re armed.”

“Spotted that the moment I saw them,” Natasha jumps in. “Did they bring a suitcase on your side?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, knowing that The Light has been holding onto this big briefcase the whole time they are there. The person holding it hasn’t let it go once. “Probably important, from how tight they’re latching onto it.”

“Explosives?” Rhodey asks warily.

“I don’t know,” Steve answers truthfully. “Just keep an eye out.”

“I’ll inform my men.” 

A new crowd collects itself around those people and Steve eyes how one of The Light has begun giving a speech, just loud enough that it reaches over to where Steve is sitting. It catches the eye of the passerby, curious about what they’re saying, before more stop in their tracks to listen.

Steve almost misses it, from how packed it’s gotten when these people are starting to block his sights of The Light for a while. But Steve catches the way one of The Light leans into the speaker’s space, saying something in their ear.

The speaker replies with a small nod that’s hardly visible through the throng of people. Steve guesses an order has been given and closes his book.

It happens almost too quickly.

The speaker representing The Light suddenly has a blaster in his hands, big and ugly, and a whole shitton of surprise that it makes the crowd recoil and gasp out of shock from the sudden appearance of a weapon in their presence. A second later, they’re all running, away from The Light that the sudden disturbance has others panicking as well. 

Steve jumps to his feet as the shields on his arms unfurl under his command. “Nat, Rhodey,” he starts, but Natasha is already talking over him.

“It’s a Chitauri weapon,” she hisses, and there’s a blast somewhere on her side of the line.

Steve sucks in a breath. “What—“

There’s a terrifying scream, and a bright flash of blue light blinds him for a second that he covers his eyes with his hands. When he’s able to see again, the people who have been running away are frozen in their places — it’s as if something has taken hold of their ankles, rooting them to the spot.

What’s concerning is how dazed they looked, peace softening the lines of terror away from their faces as they face the members of The Light with lazy movements. It has the resemblance of someone getting drugged, blindly following anyone who they think is in control.

It reminds Steve of Bucky, and Pierce, and how orders are easy to give and easy to consume. Steve has seen that same blank look on Bucky, and now he’s seeing it on others.

“They’re under their control,” Rhodey concludes breathlessly, snapping Steve out of his rolling turmoil. “How the hell did they even manage to get old alien weapons and not get themselves blown up from meddling with the damned things?”

“I wouldn’t be too sure,” Natasha says dryly.

Steve makes himself move forward. “We have to get it from them.” 

“Already on it.”

From the past few years that he’s been wandering alone on this planet, Steve learns how to do things with the kind of ruthlessness he’s been tapering down all his life.

Most times, he’d give the benefit of the doubt when it comes to facing his opponents. Giving them a chance is one of the few rules he promises himself to follow, just because some people do the things they do out of the orders of others with their eyes covered with dutch tape.

He doesn’t care now, not when their blatant intent has gotten others hurt when Steve should’ve made himself react faster. He’s given them their chances long ago, and he’s had enough.

When Steve moves, he makes sure he doesn’t collide with the civilians and rushes towards the people of The Light. Upon seeing him, they aim that weapon of theirs towards his way.

A streak of blue light shoots at him. Steve duck rolls to the side that he hits the ground sideways, and he wastes no second to push himself up and run at them again. 

The Light tries to hit him again, but Steve is already close enough that he yanks the blaster up so that the beam crackles into the sky, bright cyan light illuminating against the dark clouds that have been hanging above their heads. 

One of The Light brings a knife down at him, but Steve manages to deflect it with his shield and hits them in the face that they go down hard and unconscious. The others start doing the same, crowding on him that Steve realises it’s now seven against one.

He bares his teeth into a smile.

They don’t stand a chance.

Steve has the blaster in his hand now, one of The Light in the other as he squeezes the man’s neck in warning, bringing the blaster up from where Steve has him pinned to the ground. The man’s friends are all out like a—

Well, like a _light_ around them.

“You’re going to reverse what you did,” Steve tells him. “And you’re going to do it now.”

The man gurgles out a bout of laughter under his hand. “And lose our people? We can’t do that.”

Steve shakes him a bit, anger bubbling underneath his skin. “They’re not your people if they didn’t choose it under their will. Change them back. _Now_.”

“Like I said, we can’t do that,” When the man grins, it’s hideous with smug glee. “The Lord’s orders. The leader says we have to follow Him.”

Steve thinks if he isn’t as opposed to killing people out of fury as he is, he'd crush the man’s neck right there.

He’s unhinged and doesn’t give a fuck in where it doesn’t matter — he’s not a maniac of a murderer.

Instead, he yanks the man up by the neck before slamming him down again, pulling out a wheeze of panic from him when he clutches onto Steve’s wrist. “Where’s your leader?”

“Away,” the man chokes out. “Not here.”

“ _Where?_ ”

When Steve presses into his throat more, the man does the same thing with his wrist. “ _Seattle_ ,” he finally squeaks out.

Steve glares down at him and leans away to shove the blaster into the man’s arms. “Change everyone else back.”

* * *

When they do find the leader, Steve doesn’t offer him any sort of negotiation and takes him in there and then. 

Rhodey gives orders to his men in making sure they lock the leader up for good. There’s no resistance from him and the people who have been actively helping him in scheming his way up to the top. It’s not supposed to be as odd as it is, but Steve thinks there should be more protest from them after tumbling down their years' worth of hard work in a matter of a week. But, they keep their heads and hoods down as they silently follow their way into prison.

Steve looks around; Natasha has been right when she says The Light have taken themselves internationally. The leader makes them chase after him until they’re in Belgium. This castle they’re in is abandoned, empty except for the room is specifically where The Light keeps all their data. It has wires and screens spread across this huge wall, and personal information of every single member who joined The Light, willingly or otherwise, are there to look through.

They find the rest of the stolen Chitauri parts in the dungeons. They’ve been modifying the leftovers until they manage to create all sorts of weapons, from the simplest Glock fed with alien energy to some wings that look far too similar to Sam’s.

Steve turns away and trusts his teammates to handle the rest.

The chapel he walks in is cleaned up. Clearly, the place is used where they’ve done their prayers under the false message of a fake prophet. There are candles everywhere, the wax hardened long ago from where they’ve spilled across the tables or floor. 

Steve sits on the front row bench, and the winds outside hum through the small windows that situate themselves high above his head, making the place a lot more chilly than it should be. 

It’s reflex now to reach for the dog tags he stuffs underneath all that kevlar and jacket he’s put on. The metal is cold and familiar; when Steve looks at it again, at its worn silver and thin plates, it’s just as similar as all those times he’s been obsessively staring at it when the ground under him is more tilted than usual.

Right now, with his booted feet planted firm on the old tiles, Steve knows he’s as sure as the beating heart in his chest when he says that he’s _tired._

He doesn’t know when this feeling will end.

He presses his lips to Bucky’s name and silently begs for an answer he won’t get.

* * *

Steve folds, in the end.

He finds himself at the entrance of the building again, hands shoved into pants pockets as he tilts his head up to see the top.

He has no idea why he’s there in the first place, other than his body doing the driving rather than his brain. 

Taking a deep breath, Steve pulls out his hands and starts walking through the entrance.

Claire greets him with a nod when he sits at his usual spot at the back of the crowd.

* * *

Five years.

That’s how long they’ve been living in this half populated world.

The first clue to salvation comes to the front door of the Avengers Compound wearing Scott Lang’s face. He looks as if he’s been doused with an energy the whole lot of them have lost a long time ago, and he’s pleading with them to let him in.

Steve thinks he’s really gone out of his mind the first time he sees him.

“Please tell me I’m not the only one seeing this.”

“He’s there,” Natasha says, a quiver in her voice as disbelief rings between them like a live wire. She taps onto the security footage to zoom in on Scott’s face. He’s frantically waving his arms at the camera. “He’s at the front door.”

“I thought he left,” Steve mutters under his breath, but Natasha hears him all the same.

“Apparently not.” Natasha shoots out of the room, and Steve follows her in long strides. “He probably knows something, and at this point, I’m willing to listen to anything.”

She’s not wrong; Steve knows this is an opportunity to see if they can do something that doesn’t have the same answers they’ve been hearing after all these years. They’re tired of that. But, somewhere in his gut, he knows this unexpected surprise will help them.

It’s as if someone threw a toaster into the pool they’ve been suspended in, and it’s a welcoming change that Steve feels his nerves are as frazzled as the analogy gets.

Something is coming. He can _feel_ it.

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me what you think :)


End file.
